Our society is currently split on the value of scientific expertise. That split goes back at least as far as Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”
Tag Archives: science fiction
Sci-Fi Provides Pandemic Guidance
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Andromeda Strain, Anthony Fauci, COVID-19, Donald Trump, Frankenstein, Last Man, Margaret Atwood, Mary Shelley, Michael Crichton, Oryx and Crake, pandemics, Stand, Stephen King Comments closed
Donne’s Lovers, Spooky at a Distance
Tuesday Adam Gopnik makes some nice literary allusions in a recent New Yorker essay-review of George Musser’s Spooky at a Distance, which is about the history of quantum entanglement theory. Entanglement, also known as non-locality and described by Einstein as “spooky at a distance,” claims that two particles of a single wave function can influence each other, even […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", "Valediction: Forbidding Mourning", Albert Einstein, Anthony Trollope, entanglement, fantasy, John Donne, Lyrical Ballads, non-locality, Science, William Wordsworth Comments closed
Vonnegut’s Sci Fi Says the Unsayable
Yesterday I spent all day—from 9 am to 6 pm with occasional breaks—listening to our English majors present their senior projects. That I was energized rather than drained by the experience testifies to the strength of the talks. In today’s post I report on my student Chris Hammond’s essay on Kurt Vonnegut’s use of science […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Cat's Cradle, Dresden firebombing, Kurt Vonnegut, PTSD, Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five, World War II Comments closed
Vonnegut’s Sci Fi, a Response to PTSD
Kurt Vonnegut’s science fiction can be seen as a way of coping with his PTSD.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Kurt Vonnegut, PTSD, Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five, war experiences Comments closed
Atwood and the Eve of Destruction
Margaret Atwood’s most famous novel may be her futurist nightmare The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). In her two most recent novels, Atwood returns to the dystopian genre and paints a picture of a world in which unbridled capitalism, environmental devastation, urban decay, sexual license, runaway gene splicing, and extreme income disparity rule the earth. My book […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged apocalypse, Dystopia, Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake, Year of the Flood Comments closed
